Privilege is a loaded term that can denote many different things. Among its meanings is the idea that, regardless of someone’s decisions and actions, they have both the means and flexibility to be able to avoid true consequences should they make the wrong choice. That doesn’t make someone a bad person or imply that they won’t put effort into what they do, but not everyone is able to recover without repercussions, which by definition means they will approach whatever they do with more care and consideration given the stakes. Behemoth! is a film about someone who goes through his life without worrying about what might happen next and isn’t interested in taking responsibility for what happens as a result.
Alex (Pedro Pescal) is an accomplished cellist preparing to leave Chicago for Los Angeles, and he can’t get out fast enough given the terrifying energy of the very wealthy and seemingly psychotic Carol (Olivia Wilde), who is not eager to let him go or to acknowledge that their relationship is over. Returning home to LA enables him to take care of his sick mother (JoBeth Williams) and play in an orchestra recording film scores. As he enters into new, fleeting romances without a plan for how long he’ll stay in the relationship, he’s drawn back to memories of years earlier living in Dallas and playing alongside violinist Nadia (Eva Victor).
Behemoth! gets its name from the working title of a highly-classified film that Alex’s orchestra is working on the music for, but it’s also a fitting moniker for this film. Alex is but a small part of this massive music-making machine, and taking him out and replacing him with another cellist might not be noticeable to anyone without a trained ear. But he must play his part just right in order for the whole to sound perfect, and this is the only area of his life in which he actually applies himself and plays by the rules. The only two real examples of selfless behavior he exhibits are looking after his mother and taking another young musician under his wing without anything to gain in return.
This is a fascinating character study, and Pascal is a terrific choice for this lead role. At times, he’s impossibly charming, like when three socialites hosting a party approach him after his playing to flirt and fawn and he tells them he practices in the nude. That suave response doesn’t impress Nadia, but the two still sleep together, even after Nadia tells Alex that he slept with her roommate at Juilliard (turns out he knew that and called her ahead of time so he could make Nadia feel bad about having fallen out of touch with her). There’s no limit to Alex’s appeal until he declines to make any effort, which makes the framing of Carol as frantic and unhinged questionable given that it’s easy to imagine that Alex didn’t treat her that well when he realized – or failed to realize – that the two of them did not have the same expectations of the relationship.
Making Alex endearing while also demonstrating poor conduct and unkind behavior is a delicate tightrope that Pascal navigates very well. Victor and Wilde – who is having a banner year with The Invite and I Want Your Sex – make extremely brief roles feel completely vital to the plot, ensuring that the mark they leave on Alex, or at least would like to believe they’ve left, is felt for the remainder of the film. Will Arnett, Margarita Levieva, Stephanie Sigman, Alexa Swinton, and Hank Azaria round out a formidable ensemble who all enhance small roles with deep grasps of the characters that linger long past their last scenes.
Tony Gilroy makes a welcome return to the film world after creating Andor, marking his fourth film after Michael Clayton, Duplicity, and The Bourne Legacy. He reveals a deep love of music most felt in the utilization of nine separate composers to score music for each of the tracks performed by the orchestras, an effective tool to make them feel distinct due to their attachment to different projects. What’s most potent about this well-written and executed story is the way in which the music spills over from a rehearsal to whatever is going on in Alex’s life, which often doesn’t match the intensity and beat of what’s being played. It’s a remarkable device that leads to a purposeful conflation of tones that should elicit laughter from the audience when, if put to other or no music, might be interpreted entirely differently.
Audiences watching in the hopes of seeing Alex meet punishment for the recklessness with which he lives his life will likely be disappointed, best demonstrated when the taxi driver he convinces to take one last fare while he’s running from Carol is killed during their ride and more time is spent on the fate of his cello than any remorse for his death. But fruitful surprises do await that begin to push him to contemplate how he might have taken a more active role in charting his path, which frequently takes him to a brand-new city, leaving all the drama behind with the ability to start over fresh somewhere else and force others to pick up the pieces.
His family issues don’t always affect him but are just waiting to bubble to the surface, and this film smartly handles a portion of that without spending too much time on something that he’d have to admit has swayed him but doesn’t constantly dominate his thoughts the way it perhaps should. With sweeping musical overtures to accompany the movements of its protagonist’s life, Behemoth! is an equally entertaining and thoughtful meditation on the things gained and missed from breezing through life without bothering to look ahead or back.
Movie Rating: 8/10
Behemoth makes its world premiere as the Centerpiece of the 64th New York Film Festival and will be released theatrically by Searchlight Pictures on December 4th.
